Rick’s Heart Foundation has worked with Canadian fire and medical services across the country and secured the donation of a number of operationally ready fire trucks and ambulances. The Foundation is shipping these vehicles to places around the world.

The first vehicles have already been sent: an ambulance by freight to Liberia, Africa, and trucks and ambulances by convoy towards Nicaragua and Central America, where the first 3 fire trucks will be going into service in Mexico early in the new year. There will be many more to come.

These vehicles are incredibly important, but in order to truly build the capacity of these services they must come with expertise as well. It is not enough to just deliver a truck – training is necessary to ensure the vehicles are used effectively and safely.

In order to meet that need Rick’s Heart Foundation is working with groups such as Kamloops Fire Rescue and GlobalFire. These teams provide a way for our own home-grown heroes — skilled and experienced Canadian medics and firefighters — to donate their time to accompany the vehicles and give comprehensive, state-of-the-art professional training to the brave responders receiving them.

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Ricks’s Heart Foundation is committed to building on this incredible program, bringing together great Canadian generosity and hard work to help save lives all over the world. We will be looking to deliver up to 5 more vehicles in 2019. Follow us on social media to keep tabs on our progress!

We would like to send a shout out to Compassionate Resource Warehouse for partnering with us to donate Sewing Machines to women involved in the following two groups. this was an honour for us to be able to fix up these donated Sewing Machines and repurpose them to help improve the skills and confidence in these women’s lives.

The first set of machines were donated to the young women at John Volken Academy in Surrey, BC. The John Volken Academy Program is modeled after the therapeutic community approach to addiction treatment, providing students with healthy life-style changes needed to live successful and sober lives – forever! The Program is overseen by a Senior Program Director who has a degree in psychology, is supported by a board of directors, and receives consultation from addiction professionals and healthy-living specialists. Combining the therapeutic community approach with professional guidance makes this Program extremely effective and truly life-changing.

Second set of machines were donated to women at Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver, BC. In a world that’s broken by poverty and addiction, UGM is determined to offer restoration to those in need. They do this by coming alongside men, women, and children to provide a hand up towards hope and recovery.

The bbq at beautiful Crab Park was an amazing success. Our Train of Heart & Hope ran full steam throughout the day – almost 900 happy passengers laughed and let their cares go as we toured around the park. We handed out 231 teddy bears with Save-On Meats meal tokens attached. Almost 5,000 meals were served and the gratitude from the attendees touched us so deeply – next year we’ll have to remember to bring 100 boxes of kleenex for our tears of joy!

We are once again going to participate in the UGM Annual Barbecue on July 25th, 2015. It’s a can’t miss celebration! This community event offers a host of family-friendly activities such as rides on the Train of Heart & Hope, lots of great food, a bouncy castle, face painting, a myriad of mini-carnival games, and of course, cotton candy.

Kids and adults alike can enjoy the music and delicious food. Like UGM’s other large community meals, the BBQ helps make the season fun and memorable for so many who struggle day to day. But its potential impact is actually much more profound. UGM meals are a chance for those struggling with homelessness, addiction and chronic poverty to connect with UGM outreach workers, and to become acquainted with the assistance available to them.